The Values Voter Summit in Washington this weekend left no doubt about it: The Mormon issue is back.

A Texas pastor’s inflammatory remarks here — calling Mormonism a “cult” — thrust Mitt Romney’s faith into the center of a 2012 campaign overwhelmingly focused on the economy. It was a transparent attempt by Baptist minister Robert Jeffress, a Rick Perry supporter, to drive a wedge between Romney and evangelical voters.

The attack amounted to a test for Romney, forcing him to respond to a rhetorical assault on his faith that flouted the standard rules of American political debate.

Rather than answering Jeffress directly, Romney came to the summit on Saturday and rebuked another hardline social conservative: Bryan Fischer, a controversial official at the American Family Association who has disparaged Mormonism, as well as homosexuality, Islam and more.

“We should remember that decency and civility are values too,” Romney said Saturday. “One of the speakers who will follow me today has crossed that line, I think. Poisonous language doesn’t advance our cause.”

It was a careful response that allowed Romney to criticize a detractor of his faith without inviting a lengthy public conversation about Mormonism.

The response also hewed close to the role he’s tried to craft for himself in the GOP primary, as the grown-up who will talk to the extreme wings of his party, but not work overtime to appease them.

It’s unclear whether that will be enough to win over many social conservatives, who harbor deep distrust of Romney for his history of changing positions on abortion and gay rights.

But Romney supporters say there’s little point in trying to sway voters who may have ruled out the Republican for his Mormon religion – a group that may or may not be large enough to pose a serious political obstacle to the former Massachusetts governor.

“For social and religious conservatives who really care primarily about values, I think they’ll be very happy with Mitt Romney,” said evangelical public relations executive Mark DeMoss, a Romney supporter. “For those few who are bent on drawing theological boundaries, it’ll be different.”

DeMoss warned that Jeffress was going down a “dangerous path” by trying to stir up religious divisions.

“I would remind fellow evangelicals: Our track record is not spotless in public life. Mark Sanford in South Carolina, John Ensign in Nevada – those were evangelicals,” he said. “Electing an evangelical, I think, has historically proven not to be the answer to all the world’s problems.”

Romney’s attitude is different this time around than it was in his last presidential bid, when he campaigned as an orthodox social conservative and gave a speech at Texas A&M attempting to quiet concerns about his faith.

He’s struggled again to win over Christian conservatives. But fortunately for Romney, there’s not another candidate in the race who has become a Mike Huckabee-style focal point for disaffected evangelicals.

Nor is there a candidate who will make provocative comments about Mormonism, as Huckabee did when he asked The New York Times: “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

Far from adding fuel to the fire Jeffress started, a number of evangelical leaders at the conference this weekend came to the defense of Romney and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer told POLITICO the Jeffress comments were “unfortunate” and said conservatives of different faiths should prepare to “make common cause” against President Barack Obama.

“We’re not calling people together for an ecumenical meeting to get rid of differences on matters of theology,” Bauer said. “This is an American political campaign.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pointed out that evangelicals and Mormons already have a “strong working relationship” around issues such as abortion and the definition of marriage.

Still, Perkins acknowledged that some evangelical voters will “first look at another evangelical candidate.” He suggested that in a campaign dominated by the economy, Romney might benefit from talking more about cultural issues as well.

“He’s got to reassure folks that what he said four years ago still stands,” Perkins said. “I think his positions are still the same, but he’s got to articulate it.”

Perkins added: “Where values voters are here, they’re looking at where candidates stand on the issues: Are they pro-life? Are they pro-marriage? Are they pro-family?”

That might be Romney’s bigger problem with social conservatives: Like other segments of the GOP base, many of them just don’t believe his ideological sincerity.

Romney drew only 4 percent support in the Values Voter Summit straw poll. Ron Paul and Herman Cain came in first and second, followed by Rick Santorum.

Attendees at the gathering organized by Perkins’s group expressed discomfort with Romney’s wavering positions on abortion and gay rights, as well as the health care law he signed in Massachusetts.

“To me, Romney is a Democrat. A moderate Democrat,” said Terry Keown, a Herman Cain supporter from Georgetown, Ky. “I don’t see the sincerity.”

Richard Perkins, an attendee from Baton Rouge, La., pointed to Romney’s “liberal views” and lack of “fire in the belly” as turn-offs.

“I don’t really care that much for him,” he said. “That Massachusetts health care is too similar to Obamacare.”

But even among Romney critics who explicitly attack Mormonism, there are glimmers of a possible reconciliation down the road.

Fischer, the activist Romney jabbed in his speech, reminded reporters that Romney had run for governor in 2002 as a “pro-abortion candidate.” But asked if he would support Romney in a general election, Fischer conceded: “I’m not gonna stay home in 2012 and I’m not gonna vote for Barack Obama.”

Even Jeffress said he’d “hold his nose” and support Romney for president if he had to, though he warned: “I do not think evangelical voters are going to be motivated to go out and vote for Mitt Romney.”

That’s a challenge Romney will face in the general election, if he can fight through a crowd of culturally conservative opponents to get there.

If one of his rivals emerges as the Mike Huckabee of 2012, Romney could find himself squirming from a sustained examination of the views he’s changed over time, and the Mormon faith that has remained constant.

In the meantime, evangelicals say, Romney may be able to get by on the same claim he’s making to the rest of the Republican coalition: That he’s the right candidate to take on Barack Obama.

“What’s the best thing he can do to convince them to vote for him? Beat Obama more than the others,” said Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

“Barack Obama has shown a unique ability to unite social conservatives across the country, more than any other person I’ve seen, in opposition to him,” Land said. “They really want to beat this guy.”